Nortel went bankrupt in 2009. In 2011, it held an auction for its massive patent portfolio. The winners of the auction were Apple, Microsoft, Sony, RIM, and others, who bought the patents for $4.5 billion as a consortium named Rockstar Bidco.  http://m.slashdot.org/story/193739 Great. They want to stop Google from being a search engine. Patents are really good for Read more about Patent strike on Google by evil empire[…]

The court has struggled over the issue of allowing the copying of the hard drive. This is a serious invasion of privacy and is certainly not a standard remedy… The tipping point for the court comes from evidence that the defendants – in their own words – are hackers. By labeling themselves this way, they Read more about Call yourself a ‘hacker’, lose your 4th Amendment right against seizures[…]

Instead of sending suspected terrorists to Guantanamo Bay or secret CIA “black” sites for interrogation, the Obama administration is questioning terrorists for as long as it takes aboard U.S. naval vessels. http://m.military.com/daily-news/2013/10/08/under-obama-black-sites-swapped-for-ships.html?ESRC=topstories.RSS

Wow. Now there’s a surprise. Not. NSA Officers Spy on Love Interests – Washington Wire – WSJ.

Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens—even people suspected of no crime. Not everyone was on board. “This is a sea change in the way that the government interacts with the general public,” Mary Ellen Callahan, chief privacy officer of the Department of Homeland Security, argued Read more about U.S. Terrorism Agency Granted Unprecedented Access to Citizens’ Files[…]

Exogenous variation comes from the unexpected shutdown of the popular file hosting platform Megaupload.com on January 19, 2012. The estimation strategy is based on a quasi difference-in-differences approach. We compare box office revenues before and after the shutdown to a matched control group of movies unaffected by the shutdown. We find that the shutdown had Read more about Piracy and Movie Revenues: Box office sales went down after they closed MegaUpload[…]

Evidence has emerged showing the Department of Homeland Security served a search warrant on Mr Dotcom’s file-sharing company Megaupload in 2010 which he claims forced it to preserve pirated movies found in an unrelated piracy investigation. The 39 files were identified during an investigation into the NinjaVideo website, which had used Megaupload’s cloud storage to Read more about Megaupload framed by FBI claims Kim Dotcom[…]

A customer trying to set up his Razer Naga 2012 mouse couldn’t because he had to register with Razer before he could change the settings. The Razer servers were down because of hurricane Sandy. Why on earth would he need to connect to Razer at all to set up his mouse?! “Why the hell does Read more about Razer mice need the internet to work?![…]

The National Counterterrorism Center is now allowed to buy and keep large databases of information on their own nationals, even though they are not suspected of anything. Not only that, but they can share their information with anyone they want. To top it off, they have no practical form of oversight at all. The Biggest Read more about The Biggest New Spying Program You’ve Probably Never Heard Of[…]

Yes, if they can’t get your freedoms one way, they will try another. Michael Geist – ACTA Lives: How the EU & Canada Are Using CETA as Backdoor Mechanism To Revive ACTA.

Granted, copyright is a fussy subject which stifles innovation and freedom, but copyright holders are entitled to at least /some/ protection, at least for some time! The UK government is considering a proposal to allow anyone to digitise anything and use the data for commercial purposes unless the creator of the content ‘opts out’ from Read more about UK proposes to allow Google to digitise all copywriten works with no renumeration[…]

Apparently they profile tourists and then force them to open their email on their own PC (which means basically you’re giving them your email login through a keylogger) and they look into it. If you disagree you’re hiding something and not allowed into the country. Besides using profiling, which is innefective, it’s a huge invasion Read more about To get into Israel you may have to give your email password[…]

Wait – what? It BROKE an insulin pump? And it’s supposed to be safe for people to go in? Really? Diabetic teen upset with TSA screeners at Salt Lake City Airport – ABC4.com – Salt Lake City, Utah News.

Have they gone nuts? They say that as code isn’t something physical, it can’t have been stolen. So it’s OK to take as much sources from a previous employer and do whatever you want with it. “He argues that: [1] the source code was not1a “stolen” “good” within the meaning of the National Stolen2Property Act, Read more about U.S. Appeals court determines it’s OK to take an employers’ source code[…]

In the US of course. And of course, if you say “no” you don’t get a job. As an alternative they want you to friend a HR worker. Aside from a bizarre wish to pry their noses into people’s private lives, the US government should put a stop to this. Job seekers getting asked for Read more about Job seekers getting asked for Facebook passwords[…]

$1B of TSA Nude Body Scanners Made Worthless By Blog — How Anyone Can Get Anything Past The Scanners « TSA Out of Our Pants!.

This report concludes that ACTA’s harm greatly exceeds its potential benefits. Given ACTA’s corrosive effect on transparency in international negotiations, the damage to international intellectual property institutions, the exclusion of the majority of the developing world from the ambit of the agreement, the potentially dangerous substantive provisions, and the uncertain benefits in countering counterfeiting, there Read more about Assessing ACTA: Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law[…]

Collusion is an experimental add-on for Firefox and allows you, for the first time, to see all the third parties that are tracking your movements across the Web. It will show, in real time, how that data creates a spider-web of interaction between companies and other trackers. New Mozilla Browser Add-On Visualizes Who Is Tracking Read more about Collusion Add-On Visualizes Who Is Tracking You Online[…]

The European digital rights organisation has launched a website with 5 one page flyers explaining in a nutshell what’s wrong with ACTA. It looks pretty complete to me, even though it’s only 5 pages out of whole essays one could write about what’s wrong with ACTA. What's Wrong with ACTA Week | EDRI.

Ziggo and XS4ALL, two ISP’s in NL, have been forced by the courts to dissallow users to get to the pirate bay. Of course, users will still be able to get there using VPNs so it’s not very effective, but more worrying is that the Dutch courts seem to think that not only do they Read more about NL courts rule ISP’s are content filters – great firewall of NL coming up?[…]

EU looks like it will ratify US totalitarian ACTA anti copyright agreement driven solely by the big patent trolling businesses lobby. While we’re in a recession, let’s also completely kill innovation. Europees ja tegen ondertekening ACTA | Webwereld.

Facebook Is Tracking Your Every Move on the Web; Here’s How to Stop It.

On Saturday, October 1, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan will hold the signing ceremony for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) at Iikura Guest House, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Agreement was inspired in significant part by Japan’s proposal at the G8 Gleneagles Summit in 2005 to create a new international framework against counterfeit Read more about ACTA to be signed by a few countries[…]

This was done on the basis of patent battling. Which goes to show – patents are really great for innovation. Not. Apple wint in rechtszaak: drie Samsung Galaxy-toestellen vanaf oktober verboden – iPhone – iPhoneclub.nl.